The Daily Telegraph, 12 January 2001

You would have to be a curmudgeon not to enjoy one of Shrager's courses. She is a huge woman whose voice, hips, personality and passion for food call out for a castle to contain them. And what an impossibly romantic one it is: Amhuinnsuidhe, privately owned by Jonathan Bulmer, sits right on the sea in Harris, one of the wildest and most remote Hebridean islands.

It nestles beneath russet coloured hills which are spattered with granite rocks and dissected by icy rivers that tumble from inky lochs through the white sand beaches to the sea... Amhuinnsuidhe is elegant and comfortable, intimate rather than grand. It is an easy place to feel at home in, and nowhere more so than in the big yellow kitchen where 12 of us plus Shrager gathered each morning...

Shrager's course, which she insists is about techniques rather than recipes, is aimed at cooks of all levels of experience... She was letting us loose on the finest ingredients: after the quail came lobster, langoustine and crab so fresh they were breathing, then rivers of top quality chocolate which we moulded into handmade confections... In addition to recipes, Shrager gave us handy hints... She fed us esoteric information...

She worked us hard but – and this was the real joy – nothing was compulsory. We were first and foremost on holiday, so if you wanted to slope off and snooze or catch a salmon rather than fillet it, you are welcome to do so... It felt like being at a well run house party: cosy, convivial and enormous fun.